A mixed group of college students and young professionals trickle into a Phillips Hall classroom Saturday afternoon. Brought together by their desire to learn Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, they chatter excitedly about the upcoming class, trading language resources and commiserating with each other on the stickier points of the language.
Their instructor, a petite stay-at-home mother in her 30s, arrives last, apologizes for Metro traffic and then launches into a discussion in Urdu about her week. Class is in session.
This Urdu class and others like it are organized by the Global Languages Group, a student organization founded at GW in 2005 by former student Andrew Brown. The student organization provides more than 100 free language courses in 52 languages to students and local community members.
“Some of the more popular languages are Spanish, Chinese, French and Arabic,” said Brown, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public administration. “However, there are usually students for whatever languages we offer.”
According to an Association of American Colleges and Universities poll cited in the Chronicle of Higher Education, college students preparing to graduate need clubs like the Global Languages Group more than ever. Sixty percent of employers surveyed in the poll reported that recent graduates lack skills – like language fluency or international perspective – to succeed in today’s global economy.
In response to a demand for graduates with strong international skills, colleges and universities across the country are instituting new international education requirements, using technology to connect with classrooms abroad and devising innovative ways to get their international students and professors involved with campus life, according to the same Chronicle of Higher Education article.
The Global Languages Group provides participants an opportunity to become more familiar with an array of languages and cultures without the threat of a bad grade, missed classes or failed assignments. Students at GW and the surrounding area take the classes for a variety of reasons.
“I need (language skills) at work,” said Maia Toteva, a fellow at the Smithsonian Institute who is taking Survival Skills Spanish, as well as advanced Russian and Czech. “I’ve studied it, but I need to practice speaking.”
The classes, whether advanced or basic, are characterized by a level of enthusiasm and camaraderie not found in a typical college classroom. Students attend because they want to and are not burdened by a grade.
“I’m a language nerd, so I think this is a great opportunity to do what I love,” said Nick Miller, a sophomore at Georgetown who attends both Thai and Urdu classes. “They don’t have anything like this at Georgetown.”
Most of the class instructors are native speakers, and most do not have any formal teacher training. Aziza Farooki, the Urdu instructor, said she discovered the Global Languages Group by accident.
“I was looking for a job at GW, and I just stumbled across the program on a Web site,” Farooki said. “It seemed like something I would enjoy doing, so I gave it a try.”
Despite their lack of experience, instructors are given plenty of advice and support. Before classes start, instructors attend a two-hour training session where they find out what language level they will be teaching and are shown sample lessons.
The instructors share the same enthusiasm as their students. Fabiana Perera, who teaches an advanced Spanish course on Monday nights, plays Spanish language songs, like “Limón y Sal” by Julieta Venegas, for her students, singing along to her favorites. She allows no English in her classroom and actively encourages conversation among her students. Her students respond to her enthusiasm. During one debate, routine struggles with grammar and syntax were forgotten as they eagerly discussed world events and U.S. politics with considerable ease.
“You want them to have the chance to talk; that’s the whole point of the class,” Perera said. “You want to build their confidence.”
